the spirit of Chia Pao-yue visits the confines of the GREat Void. The Monitory Vision Fairy expounds, in ballads, the Dream of the Red Chamber. Having in the fourth chapter explained, to some deGREe, the circumstances attending the settlement of the mother and children of the Hsueeh family in the Jung mansion, and other incidental matters, we will now revert to Lin Tai-yue. Ever since her arrival in the Jung mansion, dowager lady Chia showed her the highest sympathy and affection, so that in everything connected with sleeping, eating, rising and accommodation she was on the same footing as Pao-yue; with the result that Ying Chun, Hsi Chun and Tan Chun, her three granddaughters, had after all to take a back seat. In fact, the intimate and close friendliness and love which sprung up between the two persons Pao-yue and Tai-yue, was, in the same deGREe, of an exceptional kind, as compared with those existing between the others. By daylight they were wont to walk together, and to sit together. At night, they would desist together, and rest together. Really it was a case of harmony in language and concord in ideas, of the consistency of varnish or of glue, (a close friendship), when at this unexpected juncture there came this girl, Hsueeh Pao-chai, who, though not very much older in years (than the others), was, nevertheless, in manner so correct, and in features so beautiful that the consensus of opinion was that Tai-yue herself could not come up to her standard. |